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Sometimes a Commander in Magic the Gathering is just a Commander – you see them, and know how best to build the deck around them. Every part serves them and them alone, and all your strategies revolve solely around them. This category has some of the format's most popular faces, like Yuriko, Feather, and Urza, Lord High Artificer.

On the other hand, there are Commanders who serve as fronts for much scarier creatures hiding in the 99. They're Commander in name only, serving as one part of a much wider plan that sometimes won't even need them. These kinds can often be scarier, as the table may not know what to expect until it's already happening – "I don't trust this" is a frequent comment made at games featuring such cards.

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As we continue our dive into the Commanders of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, we're looking at a Commander who, on her own, doesn't seem terribly scary… until the right supporting creature comes out and suddenly you become the biggest threat in the game. We're building mono-green Deathtouch Tokens with Saryth, the Viper's Fang.

Saryth, The Viper's Fang

Saryth, the Viper's Fang

Saryth, the Viper's Fang is a 3/4 Human Warlock that costs two generic and two green mana. As long as she's out, other tapped creatures you control have deathtouch, and other untapped creatures have hexproof. You can also pay one generic and tap Saryth to untap another land or creature you control.

While hexproof and being able to untap creatures is handy, it's that first ability we're going to be building around. We want to make lots of creatures with deathtouch, and then use them to keep our opponent's creatures at bay before closing out the game with a card that pairs perfectly with Saryth.

Ramp

Saryth Ramp

Green is the color of ramp. Alongside our usual staples of Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, we're also going to be running the enchantments Burgeoning and Exploration, to let us play extra lands. Myriad Landscape also works nicely in this deck, as we're only running one color and so don't need to worry about being only able to grab one type of basic land with it.

We're also going to make use of some of the best land ramp spells in Magic: Cultivate, Migration Path, Rampant Growth, Kodama's Reach, and Nature's Lore.

While not strictly ramp, and serves their own purpose as a landfall machine, Crucible of Worlds and Ancient Greenwarden both allow you to play lands from your graveyard. Combine that with Fabled Passage, Evolving Wilds, Teramorphic Expanse, and Myriad Landscape, and it's an excellent way to secure your land drop each turn.

Draw

Saryth Draw

This deck wins and loses based on whether we draw our ace in the hole.

Harmonize, Green Sun's Zenith, Beast Whisperer, and Sylvan Library are four great draw tools for any mono-green deck, but we also want to use the sheer mass of creatures we'll be producing to help us dig through for the cards we need. For that, cards like Garruk's Uprising, Toski, Bearer of Secrets, and Shamanic Revelation do the job nicely. We could even sacrifice our weaker tokens with a Skullclamp, though this would likely be a desperation move more than a key part of our draw strategy.

There are also a few cycling cards in here, for if we've already got enough land out and would rather draw instead. Migration Path, Desert of the Indomitable, Tranquil Thicket, and Slippery Karst can all be cycled for extra draw or used for land, depending on where you are in the game.

If this deck pops off in the way we hope it to, you're going to have a lot of cards, and not a lot of ways of pulling them back out of the graveyard outside of Bala Ged Recovery. Because of that, it's well worth putting in a Reliquary Tower and a Thought Vessel to give us no maximum hand size.

This deck relies on a few specific cards to win, and so it runs a lot of 'tutors' – spells that pull other cards out of your deck. Worldly Tutor and Sylvan Tutor are the two main ones, but there's also Shared Summons, Magus of the Order, Chord of Calling, and Protean Hulk. If you've drawn the winning piece already, any of these can be used to find the combo pieces we'll look at in the next section.

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Make Lots Of Tokens

Saryth Tokens

This deck's goal is just to make lots and lots of creatures, as Saryth does all the work in making them really scary.

To go with Ancient Greenwarden, Crucible of Worlds, and our sacrifice lands, we're of course running Scute Swarm. With Crucible of Worlds out, from one Scute we could multiply to four in a single turn. Throw in an Exploration and that number skyrockets to 16. In a single turn. To show how silly Scute Swarm can get, in just three turns with a Crucible and an Exploration out, we'd have over 4000 Scute Swarms. With Ancient Greenwarden instead of the Crucible of Worlds, which also doubles Scute Swarm's Landfall trigger, that number becomes 531,441.

Another synergy well worth playing is the infinite combo of Ivy Lane Denizen and either Scurry Oak or Herd Baloth. Have Ivy Lane Denizen out, play Herd Baloth or Scurry Oak, and use Ivy Lane Denizen's trigger to put a counter on it. They then make a green token, which triggers Ivy Lane Denizen again, and you can repeat the process until you have as many token creatures as you like.

Silliness aside, there are other great token producers in this deck that don't immediately put a target on your back. Rampaging Baloths, Hornet Queen, Avenger of Zendikar, Curious Herd, Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse, and Arasta of the Endless Web will help keep the creatures up and going long enough for you to draw into our Commander's top lieutenant.

We're going to bolster these token producers with a few things that, while not producing them directly, certainly help out in token decks. Parallel Lives and Doubling Season both double the number of tokens you make, while Second Harvest is an instant that makes a copy of every token you have on the battlefield.

Use Deathtouch To Win

Saryth Deathtouch

We have lots of creatures, and now it's time to use their deathtouch to cause havoc.

With as many creatures as we're making, we don't need to worry too much about finding ways to tap them for Saryth to give them deathtouch. Just swinging in combat taps them, and there are bound to be creatures who survive combat for you to make use of.

Isochron Scepter is usually used as an infinite untap combo piece with Dramatic Reversal, but here we're using it with an often-overlooked common from Ikoria: Ram Through. Ram Through lets a creature you control deal damage to a creature you don't control – if your creature has deathtouch, that damage will be an almost guaranteed kill on whatever you target. For just two mana you'll be able to kill anything on the board each turn, clearing out the way of any troublesome blockers or threatening attackers. Devouring Tendrils is a Sorcery that does the same thing, however, it can't be imprinted onto Isochron Scepter and so is less useful.

Another combo piece-turned-deathtouch-killer is Walking Ballista. Load it up with counters (maybe through a combination of Scute Swarm and Ivy Lane Denizen), tap it, and then blast those counters out for deathtouch damage at instant speed to as many creatures as you want.

He's been mentioned a few times, but it's finally time to show off who makes this Commander deck really come together: Fynn, the Fangbearer. A one generic, one green Human Warrior, he puts two poison counters onto any player who is dealt combat damage by a deathtouch creature you control. If any player gets ten poison counters on them, they immediately lose the game.

The plan is to make a lot of creature tokens, make them have deathtouch with Saryth, swing out, and let Fynn wipe the board out with a ridiculous number of poison counters. If you're struggling to get the board presence needed for this, Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider doubles the number of counters you put on anything, doubling up Fynn's two poison counters to four. That way, you need fewer creatures to get through to win the game.

Fynn is the reason why we're running so many tutors. Getting him out and ready when you need him is vital. Protecting him (through the Hexproof Saryth gives him, or with Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots) is the single most important thing you can do in this deck. If Fynn goes, you'll have to rely on raw combat damage, which is less efficient and more difficult.

Backup Plan

Saryth Finishers

If Fynn is taken out, there are still a couple of ways to bring the game to a close. It'll simply require a bit more work.

The closest way to Fynn is Triumph of the Hordes, which gives each creature you control +1/+1, trample, and infect. Infect means a creature either deals damage to other creatures in -1/-1 counters, or it deals damage to an opponent's face in poison counters, letting us finish in the way we always intended with Fynn.

Alternatively, there is the 'Go Smash' method of Craterhoof Behemoth. Once you have a lot of tokens ready to attack, Craterhoof Behemoth will buff them all up equal to as many creatures you have, and give them trample. It's a bigger damage, infect-less Triumph of the Hordes, and is a go-to finisher in most mono-Green Stompy kind of decks.

Powering The Deck Down

Saryth Power Down

If you're playing at a table who likes to run slower decks, there are a few ways to scale Saryth back. The biggest, most drastic change would be to remove Fynn and Triumph of the Hordes to remove poison counters from your strategy. Infect can rub some tables the wrong way, as it's easy to get to the required ten counters quite easily.

Alternatively, you could remove the tutors. By taking those out, you're relying on luck of the draw not only to find Fynn, but also for your big token producers like Scutes Swarm and Ancient Greenwarden or Ivy Lane Denizen and Herd Baloth. You'll still get games where you do what you want to do, but it'll be a lot less consistent.

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